Declan's done an excellent journalistic job. I understand that because of the space limitations he couldn't quote everything that everyone told him, so one small point in his article might be misinterpreted by a casual reader: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> writes:
though, he's almost notorious. His .sig file, for instance, proudly Why "almost"? :-) points out that he's a former Kook of the Month; Vulis was also a There's no such thing as "former" KOTM, Declan. That's a lifetime achievement! Net-legend and even has the alt.fan.dimitri-vulis newsgroup named after him. (I newgrouped a.f.d-v myself, actually. But it does get traffic :-) daily messages that came from Vulis's keyboard. The list is on Gilmore's machine and he can do what he wants with it; he can moderate the postings, he can censor material, he can shut the whole thing down. By kicking off an offending user, a list owner merely exercises his property right. There's no government involvement, so the First Amendment doesn't apply.
I told Declan that agree 100% - John Gilmore has the right to do anything he likes with his private mailing list. The 1st Amendment does not apply. However censorship needn't be government-imposed.
For his part, Gilmore calls removing the Russian mathematician "an act of leadership." He says: "It said we've all been putting up with
An act of censorship, an act of cowardice, an act of Hitler-like leadership...
this guy and it's time to stop. You're not welcome here... It seemed to me that a lot of the posts on cypherpunks were missing the mark. They seemed to have an idea that their ability to speak through my machine was guaranteed by the Constitution."
If John Gilmore ascribes this opinion to me, then he's lying outright. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps